Mike Greenlar / The Post StandardBarbara Buchester, of North Syracuse, looks over the village's budget proposal, which would increase the tax levy more than 17 percent, during a public hearing at the North Syracuse Community Center Thursday.
Syracuse, NY - The Onondaga County executive’s proposal to gradually phase out $87 million a year in sales tax payments to suburban towns, villages and school districts would probably fail if legislators voted on it this week, key lawmakers said Thursday.

“Right now there is not enough support for that to turn it into a resolution,” said Legislature Chairman James Rhinehart, R-Skaneateles.

Nor is there a more popular plan on the table.

County Executive Joanie Mahoney and Mayor Stephanie Miner have proposed that the county increase its share of sales tax revenues from 46 percent to 75 percent and leave the rest to Syracuse.

County legislators, who must approve any new sales tax distribution agreement, say they are struggling to craft a formula that shifts more money to the county to pay for mandated services in a way that is fair to all county residents.

The problem, said Legislator Patrick Kilmartin, R-Onondaga, is that the current distribution is so “fractured” and “arbitrary” that any attempt to simplify it creates different impacts from one municipality to another.

In most towns, for example, the loss of sales tax revenue would increase what residents pay in county property taxes; in most villages, the loss of sales tax money could result in higher village taxes but lower county taxes.

Another problem is that municipalities have come to depend on millions of dollars in sales tax money that the county voluntarily shared with them when there was plenty to go around, said Kilmartin, who serves on the Legislature’s seven-person sales tax committee. Now that times are tough, those municipalities face change, he said.

“The current economic climate is going to drive different government entities, by necessity, to totally transform how they serve and what level of service they provide,” he said.Municipalities, schools react to the plan

The proposal from Mahoney and Miner has support from business leaders, including the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Development Association, whose leaders have been lobbying legislators to leave the city’s funding uncut.

But some county legislators resist the thought of cutting towns’ and villages’ shares without reducing the city’s.

“I think there has to be some hurt on everybody’s side,” said Republican Floor Leader Richard Lesniak, of Lysander, a member of the sales tax committee. “It’s just a question of how much everybody gets hurt.”

Rhinehart said he hopes the sales tax committee will be ready to make a proposal to the Legislature by the time it meets Thursday. But legislators are still looking at a variety of options, and Rhinehart said he’d rather make a good deal than a fast one.